AI Agents Could Trigger Bank Runs and Threaten Financial System, Warns Apollo
AI agents like Meta's Muse could trigger bank runs by automatically shifting household cash to high-yield accounts, threatening cheap bank deposits.
Artificial intelligence agents could trigger bank runs, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at investment giant Apollo, in a review published over the weekend. According to Slok, Meta's Muse and similar tools may soon automatically transfer household cash balances to accounts offering interest rates of 3.3% to 5%, compared to an average of 0.1% in US checking accounts.
On a $10,000 balance, moving to an account offering 5% interest means an addition of about $490 a year. "If every household uses AI agents to maximize the return on its cash balances, banks could lose a large part of the cheap deposits they rely on to grant loans, and that would be a problem for the entire financial system," Slok wrote.
Meta launched the Muse personal agent earlier this month. Subject to user permissions, the agent makes it possible to view account balances, transactions, investments, and mortgage details. Slok's main concern is not a single household looking for a better interest rate, but rather the consequences of making this behavior automatic and widespread.
